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WHo said you can only look at the 4 gospels for eye witness testimony? Arch? First hand accounts form Peter, James others plus testimony from eye witnesses plus outside corroboration cne rightly lead one to believe the account especially since there are no accounts disputing it. That is rational. I can believe what they said as they had no reason to say otherwise and especially since 10 of them died for what they said. If it was a lie, it would not be worth dying for. So I have every reason to believe the accounts. What I want to know is what accounts or information you have that disputes these accounts? I am open to listen to a reasonable answer but I have not heard one yet. The fact that all these accounts including non-Biblical agree seems to be a compelling reason to me.

Wow, so you are going to stick with Peter as the author of the Petrine Epistles, huh? Even in light of all the scholarly evidence showing that he wasn't. Your extra-biblical sources have been shown again and again as not being contemporary accounts and only referencing the phenomenon of the growing cult, yet you continue to spew them out. All sorts of religious people have died for their beliefs, beliefs that contradict each other wildly - so they can't all be 'true'. In point of fact, the inability of the indoctrinated to realize the fallacies implanted in their brains shows how unlikely it is that any such belief was ever 'true'.

Furthermore, don't pretend there is any consensus amongst the various accounts. Even the Synoptic Gospels can't keep their facts straight even though Matthew and Luke are obviously based on Mark.

Joan of Arc died because she truly believed she heard voices - today, she would either be hospitalized, depending on her insurance carrier, or pushing a shopping cart in some major city. People often willingly die for their delusions.

First you deny any outside sources refer to Jesus, now you try to deny the outside sources by conjuring up a conspiracy theor that Christian scribes wrote Josephus's history. Well during that time the Christians were being hunted down and brutally killed by the rulers. So your theory holds no water. It is not consistent with the history of the times. The rulers would let Christians write their history as they tried to kill them?

And what about the genocide of the Christians during the first couple of hundred years of the church by atheist Romans? You deplore genocide so much but speak nothing about that.

I have tried to gain an understanding of teh atheist belief and why. It appears to me that they chose to not want to believe, then search for excuses to justify it.

You believe in Plato yet the earliest copy we have of his work is 1200 years after he lived. You believe in Aristotle yet the earliest copy we have of his work is 1400 years after he died, The Galic Wars- 1000 years etc. Yet you do not question that. The writings xcan be traced to within a few months of Jesus's life but you refuse to want to believe that.

I can accept a person saying i do not want to believe. That person is giving an honest view. What is amazing to me is that the truth is suppressed just as the Bible described. You are living in teh say of Romans - read it and see if it describes you- I think it applies.

You have no answer for the fulfilled prophecies in the Bible, the mainstream view that Jesus did exist, that he was crucified, died and was buried and on the third day his tomb was empty. That is accepted fact except by fringe libersl who have no valid reason to deny it. You cannot offer any evidence that the NT is a lie. It was written by men who suffered terrible deaths because of their beliefs and what many of them saw, Would they die because of a lie they concocted? I would not die for a lie and I don't think you would either. So the sensible thing is to accept what they write.

The Bible has withstood more scrutiny by skeptics for thousands of years na dit still remians and will always remain as it is true. Nothing you or the others have said here convinces me or any other reasonable person otherwise.

I came her looking for real reasons for your religion and have found nothing but what Romans said would happen. BYE

I have denied that there are contemporary sources noting the alleged miracles of Jesus because there aren't any. Please tell me in what year Josephus was born? Did you even read the article that I linked about Josephus? Do you have any response to the overwhelming number of scholars that have noted the inconsistencies in the literary style used in the middle of his notation about the cult of Jesus? I've never claimed Christians wrote his history - I've stated, and I am very well supported by the vast majority of scholarly investigation into that matter, the Christians doctored his history regarding their cult. You are unable to process the facts regarding the history of the writings of Josephus because it contradicts your faith, plain and simple. You have no scholarly articles discussing the changes made to his work, you refuse to acknowledge the year in which he was born, and you are unable to accept that he was writing so many years later that few witnesses would have been alive.

Again, I ask you for contemporary notation of the great crowds that were gathering to hear Jesus speak.

What about the genocide of the Christians? The Romans weren't Atheist, they were pagan. Christians have killed millions of Jews as well. All of these ethnic cleansings are deplorable. None of them change the facts.

I don't search for excuses, I simply linked you up with the scholarly opinions on the authenticity of Josephus' writings. You have yet to address them.

What do I believe of Plato? What do I believe of Aristotle? I've never even heard of the 'Galic wars'. What are you trying to attribute to me here? Now you are claiming that Josephus was writing within months of Jesus dying? I ask you again - in what year was Josephus born?

You have not named a single fulfilled prophecy in the bible. If you did, you might know what my answers were about them. Now you are purely fabricating and I realize you have given up completely on the facts because you now realize Josephus was not writing during the life of Jesus, as you were likely told in church. When you are prepared to admit the year in which Josephus was born, and when he wrote his history, then we can proceed. I've never claimed that there was no historical Jesus - you are completely confused. Face it, now you are just making everything up because you know you've lost.

@Heather - I responded to a comment on another page of this thread, referring to Dave, which relates to your issue with him as well, and may bear repeating:

"Theists come to this site because they believe they can swoop in and convert us, or at the very least, dumbfound us with all of the profound logic they've gathered from all of the spin-doctors that religious organizations have employed to spin the biblical fables enough to keep their collection plates full, and then they find that we haven't been reading the works of the spin-doctors, most of us are well-versed, not only in the Bible itself, but in the actual history surrounding it, and are more than aware of all of its weaknesses."

Assuming he's gone, as promised, none of us has any longer to concern ourselves - til the next one --

I'm getting better at stopping them from drifting the topic away from their original fallacy - but I would sure like to pin one down on some basic facts. Just once I would like one of them to understand what I mean by contemporary recordings of the 'miracles'. I think some of them do, but they just can't bring themselves to acknowledge that they don't exist.